Category Archives: JDT: Cartoon Enthusiast

Another Nov 24, means its time to reveal my plans for the new year. I know that I haven’t touched this blog for a good while, mainly due to being so involved on my world-building blog: Arcane Realm. But now I have a plan to start putting content on my first blog again so I hope you bear with me here:

Reviews of new media I find

For example, there are a bunch of seldom seen books at the library I read that I feel would be great idea to do quick reviews on the site

Fan Comic

I’ve had an idea for a comedic online comic using characters of franchises that mean a lot to me, and I’ve decided to show the strips on this blog as well as concept art.

Now that September is here, I had an idea I wanted to try and willing to share with my followers. I want to do a few new things but before I do, I wanted to see if my ideas are anything anybody actually wants to see. One of my first is that every week in September, I will do a pencil drawing of a single character of one of my current favorite fandoms. Here’s the part where you come in, I will set up a poll with a set of characters from a certain series where my followers get to pick which one I do that week. Hopefully this will be the beginning of me listening to my audience feedback and find out what they would like, thanks for the support.

Premise
So picture this, two years after Phantom Planet, the series Grand Finale. Danny Phantom is still the Hero of World though a few organizations like Guys in White seem him as threat. Also Danielle been on her own all this time until she comes back to Amity Park.
Going through the motions a bit, it starts with her getting hit by a device that makes her lose her powers until she slowly regains with help from one of Danny’s Ghost Zone allies. Then its kind of a mini mystery to find out where is Amity Park’s hero and why the town is overrun with ghosts.

What I like about it
There a lot I like about it personally, first you should know that I like Dani Phantom, part of me reading this because I wish she had more than two episodes (and a brief cameo at the end). I tend to have a tendency to like underutilized characters with a lot of potential and Dani fits that bill.
Now here’s where I do my best not to spoil the story via moments (Sure the story is 8 years old but I only found it two years ago and I want new readers for this story):

-While the Ghosts are still fought, the few non-ghosts in the Rogues Gallery seem to be the major antagonists and drive the drama, making it pretty different in that regard.
-Danny’s improvement with his powers ( Duplication, Ice powers)
-The divergence given to Dani’s powers. It goes to show how much the author notices things about the characters like how Danielle can do ghost ray kicks unlike Danny. ( In the comments you can say whether or not, but I can’t recall Danny using energy kicks). And this borders on spoiler territory but as an extension to this, Danielle comes up with her own super move, kinda her unique counterpart to Danny’s Ghostly Wail that think really fits her.

-How it addresses one of dangling plot lines scrapped in the final season (i.e. that the Fentons were planned to adopt Danielle). And just seeing how she feels about each of the Fenton’s is great too.

Dislike/Could have improved

There’s not much I dislike and I’m not going to get too emotional over an 8 year old story where the writer has gotten better. Its mostly just nitpicks to show what not to do when writing or a matter of personal taste.
-The 2 year timeskip in that overall it doesn’t seem to necessary, that is the story would be almost the same without it. Though the author admits that it so certain characters don’t recognize Danielle at first so I don’t have a real problem with it.
-I’m mixed on the ending but I doesn’t ruin the story for me and it does end on a good (but unexpected note) I can talk about it more in the comments to people who read the story if they want since I’m trying not to spoil.
-So I had to address the touchy subject on describing about certain characters. Let me make it clear, I don’t have a problem with saying a character is African American, its just weird it being brought up when nobody else’s background is brought up. I know its to let people new to the Phandom or forgot what the look like have an idea but yeah. My solution would be to simply replace “African-American” with dark or brown skin, short,sweet and fixes my real issue, keeping the flow of the story without being too distracting.

Conclusion

So as one of the first Danny Phantom I fics, about a character that never got explored as well as she could of you bet this one is one of my favorites. This one gets my special rating of Must Read, especially if you are Danny Phantom fan with an appreciation for Dani Phantom and her bond with Danny and wanted her arc materialized in some form.
Here is a link below:https://m.fanfiction.net/s/4681772/1/The-Return-of-Dani-Phantom
Should note there is a sequel but I might review that sometime in the future. Until then, wait for the next Cartoon Fanwork recommend. Don’t be afraid to comment or request some (good) ones!

Here’s another animated review of another prevailing cartoon these days.

Today I’ve decided to chat less about a show in general, and more about an episode. Don’t worry; I’ll still give background information about the show itself, I just don’t want to drone on and lose focus on my post. So let’s get started with Ultimate Spiderman.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Marvel, the Ultimate Spiderman show is the newest show on TV to feature Spiderman as a main character. To be honest though, it’s less like Spectacular Spiderman, and more like his Amazing Friends. By that I mean S.H.I.E.L.D recruits him for superhero training along with teenage versions of White Tiger, Nova, Power Man (Luke Cage), and Iron Fist. Also they give spidey some tech/ or guest appearances from other marvel heroes like Iron Man, or Thor. In America, it airs on Disney XD along with Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and their marvel super shows.

Now actually reviewing this show can be a little tricky, since there are a lot of quirks and they VERY easy to nitpick. I’ll start with the episode called “Field Trip.”

We have an introduction featuring Oden, Loki, and the mighty Thor. I know this is a real nitpick, but that’s like saying were going to talk about Hercules and some lighting guy…I think Zeus was his name? Then we have cute little nod to the spider bite origin,…which is completely screwed by the painfully unfunny goatboy joke.

“Ughhh”…is right Peter. I’m okay with how the frost giant made the scene, yeah small for a giant but he’s going to have to fit in there.

Fight starts so spidey catches the fourth wall to show a slow-mo of Nova getting beat. I could see how stuff like would bug people, but I like it since the show sets it up that Nova’s jerky attitude gets him smacked almost as much as the wall crawler. So then spidey’s “ultimate” friends bicker about their battle styles (bet that will come up later) and of course they get pushed back, leaving your friendly neighborhood you-know-who to remind everyone that 4th wall isn’t the only thing he has under control. Or not.

But wait!!! It’s chibi spidey fan-gushing over the Mighty Thor’s appearance center stage (yeah this pretty much standard fare any marvel hero guest star, bonus points if you’re an avenger). As you may have guessed, Thor keeps the monster at bay, though it’s seen as him brushing off the teens (who I remind u were having trouble with it earlier) to get work done. Thor like the rest of us gets tired of the team’s fighting among themselves but seems to forget to be careful with enemy possessions (maybe he couldn’t read the tag on its neck?) and gets turned into a frog. With the hammer and everything.

O.K.

No, you see, Loki did it and we get a little background info about him and his plans, etc and spidey makes a lame joke, the usual. And since this is spiderman’s show, he is the only one making sense while Thor thinks he can still be all that and a bag of chips as an amphibian.

Loki is a good villain, not just because he has the cards but he feels you know IN CHARACTER. I know Thor is actually arrogant at times but here it seems a little too convenient. Especially when it seems like Spiderman has waaaaay more wisdom in battle than a guy who I should been warring against (at least) his brother for years. It gets even more grating when spidey has to give a god (demi god?) a lesson in humility. In worked in Thor’s movie but that’s not the same situation here. Anyways, the team storms Loki fortress yet again, but with new weapons made a dwarf. (No little friend jokes please.) In fact each weapon is especially designed to show each of the teams flaws to the viewer and force them to fix them to beat the guards. Oh by the way, they had to pretty much make one up for Powerman because even though it wasn’t shown before, he needs something right? How did the dwarf know that stuff anyways and…oh wait…just use magic, done.

Oh but Spiderman doesn’t get away from the moral scott free…nor does he get any weapons to protect himself. He has to step up as the team leader and guide everyone else. Even the writers and Spiderman know how lame that cliché is and spidey tells us the bull he has to put up with. At least this show is aware when it gets cheesy and finally apologies for it, I respect that. Anyways we find Loki going for Oden with only spiderman in his way. Good thing he’s the title character cause it means he can made Loki go out of his by turning Thor normal so he can “be the one to truly defeat”. In an approved use of the 4th wall, even Spidey can’t believe something that stupid actually worked. So yeah, Loki beaten, Thor learns not to overestimate his guest appearance, and a goat bites Parker to come full circle.

A GOOD SUM UP

Overall I’m gonna be fair to this episode, there were a few funny moments and when they become sappy, at least kinda/almost make up for it by pointing it out It’s a shame that it’s not done so much in other episodes. It also helps that this episode is usually higher rated than most, to show that not all of the hate is justified. Also the obnoxious 4th wall jokes that Get In The Way Of The Story are far and few after the beginning. It’s okay if spidey does deadpool shtick as long as episode can go along with it or it’s short. Well except for the fact that it doesn’t seem to apply Spiderman’s use of quips to mock his foes quite properly. And yeah a lot of real *read not cliché after noon special* developments or characters haven’t been seen so far but at least it has potential. Said potential would be stronger if interesting story arcs weren’t shot down to cram in jokes but there are a few possibilities left. And yeah, it’s true that some characters do lose their comic characterizations but I think we need to remember this less a replacement for Spectacular, and more of a comic designed Super Hero Squad.

That’s right, my first is review is of the Legendary classics Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies!

If I could set a bar to the quality needed for cartoons, the Jurassic Park, the Halo, the Godfather, the Super Mario Bros, etc. it would have to be these shorts.

I know there are classics like Tom & Jerry and other MGM favorites (like those made by Tex Avery) but I’ll get to those when I do.

Looney has a rich history, I had no idea that Porky Pig was the first character to still be around today, but that’s not what I’m here for, I just talking about my experience with the series.

To begin with, they always seem more hilarious now than they did when I was a kid but the cartoons were originally made with an adult audience in mind. It only stands to reason an adult would get more out of it than a child. (Could be why the networks messed with it but didn’t they want viewers other than kids anyways?).

With daffy I feel that the crazy one is more likeable than the current jerk one but most toons were like that back then so the difference was needed. It also depended on directors: when chuck did jerk daffy it varied a lot but he did all the best ones. Fritz’s jerk daffy was insufferable, but he did a decent crazy daffy back in the day.

You may ask, why is it that when Daffy is being unapologetically awful, it’s hilarious, but when Bloo or Rigby or what have you are being unapologetically awful, it’s annoying and tiring? Maybe cause Daffy is the antagonist, and he gets what he has coming, often in an immediate and satisfying fashion. Characters like Bloo on the other hand, are presented as the protagonist, the individual we are often supposed to root for. This frustrates us as often they either do not face repercussions for their actions or when they do, it is part of some moral play that is both patronizing and forgotten by the next episode.

So what Happened?

Around the 60’s, I’ll admit they were losing it and running out of ideas then. The rise of limited animation and television, along with the fall of animation studios, didn’t really help too much neither. The other problem with looney tunes seemed to have been during the 90’s when they were doing new tv toons with limited rehashes of the old shorts. A few like quackbusters were okay but most bombed. Then there were the looney tunes movies Space Jam and Back in action. Most kids I knew liked those movies but apparently they still did too poor for WB to keep it up. The new looney tunes show was made as a sitcom to do something with the characters that wasn’t a hopeless rehash.

What made it so popular for you ( or me…)?

All in all, its success lies in the fact that (good) Cartoons are the only medium capable of doing slapstick and making it timeless. Any other medium, you have to settle for the reaction having less impact. Comics only get a few panels to work with and live action can’t have great reactions without very talented actors or a lot of post-production work. Though Charlie Chaplin and the 3 Stooges do slapstick justice as well. I’m sure there are others but their names are lost to me right now.

Or Maybe?, there’s just something about the simplicity of the show that no animated show since then has been able to really do as beautifully as old Looney Tunes. Some have been as funny, but in other ways, and others have been close… but Looney Tunes is still the best of its genre. There are a few shorts made in the early 2000s that were actually kinda funny without seeming tired, now found on DVD’s. And if the success of the Duck Dodgers series in 2003 showed anything, it’s that looney tunes still has potential in the modern world.

Still I love when they do caricatures of classic Hollywood stars. That is something really downplayed today except in the Simpsons. You know kids these days actually know who some celebrities on TV are, you know. With all the tween shows on Disney Channel and Nick it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Oh, and even get me started on cartoon network’s relationship with those type of shows in 2009. Remember CNREAL?!

Me neither.

I mean at least cartoon network is trying nowadays

Here’s what we get now

Not bad, but nowhere near as good.

Except for

THE WIZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD

The originals can be seen in the afternoons along with Tom & Jerry so it’s all good once again.